To receive any questions by Members submitted in pursuance of Standing Order 8 (3).
Minutes:
The Mayor reported that one urgent question had been submitted under Standing Order 8 (3) by Cllr A.H. Crawford.
Cllr Crawford asked, with winter approaching, what arrangements the Council had in place that year to meet its statutory responsibility to provide Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP) responses in order to prevent deaths of people sleeping rough, given that the Vine Centre had not been asked to provide the Emergency Winter Night shelter at Holy Trinity Church, Aldershot, for which Housing Justice had awarded its Quality Mark for night shelters the previous year.
In response, the Cabinet Member for Health and Housing (Cllr Barbara Hurst) stated that the Council had supported the winter night shelter in Aldershot for the previous four winters in partnership with the Vine Centre, community groups, local churches and the previous year with Hart District Council and Surrey Heath Borough Council. The Severe Weather Emergency Protocol came into force when temperatures reached freezing for three consecutive days.
Members were advised that, in recent months, the Council had taken legal action against several rough sleepers and had supported a ‘hub’ to address their needs. In 2017, the North Lane Lodge had opened providing nine beds for rough sleepers with drugs and alcohol problems and this accommodation was managed by the Society of St. James. Rushmoor therefore currently had between three and five rough sleepers in Aldershot. The Council continued to work with The Vine Day Centre, which provided a successful ‘journey’ programme for single homeless people and the Stonham Home Group, which provided assertive outreach in the Borough to engage and support rough sleepers to come in off the street and connect with those who did not have a local connection to the area. The Council was also strongly committed to ‘No Second Night Out’, which was a Government initiative focused on ending rough sleeping, specifically for those who were new to the streets.
It had been hoped that The Vine Centre would be able to develop a self-funding model to provide this facility going forward, however, this had proved impossible in the current financial situation. The Vine Centre had since changed its operating model and had moved away from working with people that had no desire to engage with its services to a more structured model based on customer engagement, which the Council fully supported.
It was felt that an alternative to the winter night shelter would be to rely on bed and breakfast accommodation. There were currently between three and five rough sleepers in Aldershot. Included in this number were those proving hard to engage and some waiting for specialist provision such as supported accommodation or North Lane Lodge.
Cllr. Hurst advised Members that the previous year, the winter night shelter had opened for 25 nights at a cost of £14,830. In comparison, it was noted that to provide bed and breakfast for 25 nights for five people would cost approximately £7,500, based on a cost of £60 per night. This was likely to be a worse-case scenario as North Lane Lodge and the outreach service were continuing to keep the numbers of rough sleepers low. The cost was therefore more likely to be nearer £3,000 and this could be met from the bed and breakfast budget.
It was noted that Surrey Heath Borough Council would be interested in providing funding for the winter night shelter on the same basis as in 2016 (£4,000). However, Hart District Council, which had contributed £4,000 in 2016 through the Department for Communities and Local Government Single Homelessness Project, would not be contributing in 2017 as it did not have the level of street homelessness needed to support the investment. To fund the winter night shelter in 2017 would cost Rushmoor approximately £11,000, for which there was currently no budget. It was considered that, in view of the reduced number of street homeless, the provision of North Lane Lodge and the lack of funding from Hart District Council, the most cost effective way of meeting statutory requirements under the SWEP would be to use bed and breakfast accommodation.